Wednesday, October 21, 2009

Alien abduction

Today in Geezergarten, we got to watch a rattlesnake in the exhibit area. This was a large diamondback that had been caught in the Park and will be let go after it shows off a bit more. Our facilitator kept the snake in line with snake tongs, and you could see it was terrified. It spent almost the whole time (at least half an hour) rattling and alternately trying to escape, striking at the snake tongs, and rising up in a defensive posture as the picture shows:

Alien abduction 10-21-2009 7-32-44 AM 2304x1728 I imagine that this was like an alien abduction to the rattlesnake, surrounded by a dozen giant warm-blooded creatures, repeatedly approached by one of the creatures, and menaced by an instrument that didn’t yield when he struck it. Oh, the tales he’ll have for the other rattlers. And speaking of tails, here’s a close-up showing his, striped, with an impressive set of rattles:

Rattle 10-21-2009 7-27-00 AM 1345x941

2 comments:

  1. Poor thing! I bet it was traumatized.

    Beautiful colors though.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Those rattle show it has been around a long, long time. They will let it go, so enjoy watching it do it's thing!! Dick used to catch them with those tongs, oil their tails and ship them to the zoo in NY to make anti-venom. At least theyse people are just showing them off.

    ReplyDelete